Pansexual girl and accidental activist

Tag Archives: bystanders

When I left my abusive ex, I also decided to make it very clear to the community in which he was participating that he was a danger. See, I discovered that I wasn’t the only one he’d abused. In fact, I’d say anyone would be hard-pressed to find anyone with whom he’d ever been in a relationship, whom he had not abused. And the people to whom I was giving warnings were people I cared about a great deal. People I knew, people I’d loved as chosen family, friends, and part of a community I once cherished and called home.

This all set me on a path to consent activism. I’ve been doing that ever since.

One of the most hurtful things to ever come out of that was a message I received from a friend. At the time, I considered her my best friend. It was a message in which she explicitly withdrew her support for me, and what I was doing. It led to a conversation in which she very clearly stated that she didn’t believe I was ‘actually’ abused. In which she described what was the result of a typical behavior, by abuse victims – namely, covering up for their abuser, until the abuse is over and they are safe – as the reason she didn’t believe that I had been in an abusive relationship.

What seems to be happening is all these little changes and edits are merging together to create an inhuman monster out of a guy who is merely a selfish loser douchebag.

And there were no changes. No edits. No creation of anything. Only revelation of the way things actually went down, when I was in a place too frightening to be able to speak out.

I wrote the following, then, as a response to every single piece of it that she brought up, claiming I was lying. Just recounting it, now, leaves me trembling and aching, not only because of what he did, but because of how the loss of my friend hurt me.

What follows was originally posted elsewhere, January 9, 2014. I almost chose to simply delete it, but it is very illustrative of the things you shouldn’t do, as a friend to an abuse victim seeking support.

I was warned about the ex. His ex warned me. Her friends warned me. I didn’t listen. That is on me.

Of course, he made it a very convincing case that she was psycho, and all her friends were just jumping on a bandwagon, but I did make the decision.

I agreed to move him into my home. By the time I did so, I had determined to put as happy a face as possible on it, because I knew some of my friends would be trying to poke holes, and I didn’t want holes poked. I was in dire straits, and needed this to work. Which, of course, he well knew.

Of course, by then, I’d been through a long campaign to convince me it would be okay, and every concern I brought up was either pooh-poohed or brushed aside or handled with explanations that rang true at the time. He decided that was what he wanted long before I got on board. There’s a witness to that, in case my credibility is that far gone in your eyes.

But I did make the decisions, both to agree to it, and to keep perceptive friends from poking holes. I needed this to be good, and he was saying all the right things. I didn’t want holes. I didn’t want to see holes.

He and I, together, figured out a way to trigger my seizures for a purpose. I knew one was coming, sometime around the court date I had for my stepfather’s bond reduction hearing, and I couldn’t afford to have a seizure in court, or to be in a brain-fog, the day of. This kind of triggering worked by me lying down on the bed, and him flickering lights in my face. We used it a handful of times for important occasions, for times when I had to be okay, but my seizures would probably get in the way of that. Triggering a seizure in time for me to recover kept me from worrying about the seizure happening in the midst of those important things.

I never believed he would take that to a different place. I never even imagined he would figure out that stress triggers could be manufactured, if he just didn’t give me an avenue to walk away, and yelled and cursed and called names and got all up in my face with a barrage that wouldn’t stop until I spazzed out, seized, and later forgot the fight. I never imagined anyone would do something like that. I mean, who would?

But, because I cooperated with it the first way, I must have been on board with the second, right? …even though I wasn’t sure it was happening until it had been going on for months? No. But hey, I was on board with one, so why not the other, right? This seems to support the whole idea of Well, she let me kiss her, so why did I need to worry about getting consent to do more?

Yes. I actively encouraged him to find other partners. At first, I did this without knowing how bad things really were. How awful hereally was. I was simply happy to be experiencing compersion for the first time, and I liked the women he was meeting.

Then I started having a much harder time not seeing what he was. Much harder. I was still entirely on board with him being with other people, but for much more selfish reasons. I needed a break, now and then. I needed rest that wasn’t me sleeping with one eye open, and time in my house that wasn’t eggshells and hot coals all the time. Maybe that was “stupid or cruel,” as you called it. Perhaps I should have just fought tooth and nail against him getting what he wanted, to protect all those women from the things I was already suffering. I was too weak. I was too worn down. I was too afraid. Maybe I even hoped that some of the bad would stop, if he got his girl, and got back to the NRE that allowed our first two or three months to be okay.

I didn’t just let it happen, though. I warned them. ALL of them, personally, if I had any contact information at all. I warned them of badness in general, and gave specific details, when appropriate. I’ve maintained friendships with the two most notable ones, to this day. I call them friends. I’m pretty sure they call me the same. Both have mentioned red flags that came up, that they didn’t ignore because of things I said. Both have thanked me for making them aware enough to do so. But hey. I let him date them, right? That must prove he wasn’t abusing me. Uh-huh. Sure.

I was stupid and vulnerable and I loved the man he showed me, far past the point when his actions, and the abuse, had made it clear that man was never coming back, at least not for me, no matter how ‘good’ I was, how compliant.

I covered up the abuse because I was scared. He’d charmed the pants off a very close friend. Hell, he is a great friend, as long as you don’t get any closer than that. I was assured that no one would believe me, and he proved it with her. The more time they spent together, the less she seemed to care about me. I became paranoid. I stopped telling any of the bad stuff to anyone that he might talk to, though I had to sneak to talk to people he didn’t like. But hey, I chose to be there, right? That must mean there wasn’t any abuse, right? I mean, victims of domestic violence and emotional abuse don’t ever choose to stay with their abusers, right?

I smiled and acted like everything was hunky-dory, made excuses for his behavior, explained things in the best possible light…

I kept doing this, even when he was throwing hands full of pennies at the person who cut him off on the highway, after chasing them down and passing them at 90 mph. I kept doing this even when he broke my daughter’s cello in a fit of rage. I kept doing this even when he took the dinner I’d cooked him and threw it across the room, breaking the plate, scaring the kids, and leaving food on the floor that wasn’t safe for the dog to eat, then raking the carpet like a madman, when I insisted that he clean it up. I kept doing this when he was telling me what a bitch my daughter was, and what a cunt I was and how lazy and useless and worthless and crazy I was.

I kept doing this right up until that became impossible, which happened pretty much all at once.

I went to a con with him. Where he violated my consent, then spent three days laying on the thickest coats of victim-blaming bullshit you could possibly imagine, before posting a bogus apology online, trying to save face with the community, that he hadn’t even given to me, in the next room, in person. But hey. I chose to play with him, right? That must mean that he wasn’t abusive, right?

So. There you go. All the things that make me either a liar, or a willing participant in my own abuse. Since they’ve been thrown in my face, I thought I may as well own it all.

Do me a favor, okay? If any of ^that^ makes you think of me as a liar, or a manipulator, or whatever other hurtful words you wanna toss my way, just keep it to yourself. Un-friend me. I don’t even want to know why, anymore.

You wanna kick somebody? Well, it’s the kink community, after all. I wish you luck finding someone who’s into that sort of thing. Me? I’m not.